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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208495">ah, consent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizahawkaye/pseuds/rizahawkaye'>rizahawkaye</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(kinda???? roy tries), F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Young Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:55:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208495</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizahawkaye/pseuds/rizahawkaye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy learns a valuable lesson about consent. [He gets kicked in the shin.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang, RoyAi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ah, consent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>just something fun i wrote last week in between finals. (:</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Roy flipped a bucket and stood atop it to peer out the four-paned window into the Hawkeye’s weedy yard. The single dirt path connecting the shed to the house stretched out into a narrow line where it then disappeared beneath the steps that lead onto the precarious wraparound, one which Roy was sure had been food for termites for several months, but he hadn’t had much luck convincing the tenants of the House. He could barely make out the pink stamp of paper he’d left on the porch’s withered pillar. It flew around in the wind with the tall grass and the trees and the weeds that were eating their way onto the walkway. He stepped back, amused and proud at what he had accomplished with his single day off. </p><p>All through the house were slips of pink paper, each bearing a different word. There was one on the front door’s frame, a simple capital-<em>I</em> printed in Roy’s best handwriting. There were two on the brass bannister, one said <em>am</em> and the other<em> in</em>. In the kitchen on the back door, the word <em>the</em> with a swopping arrow pointing to the door’s handle would hopefully draw her outside. And the final note was stapled to the pillar, the word <em>shed</em> flapping wildly in the wind. </p><p>Master Hawkeye had woken in a fit of coughs that morning, which was Roy’s best luck yet. Roy had almost knocked on his bedroom door, but Miss Riza had caught him on his way, a tray of plain wheat toast and steaming tea balanced in her small hands. She’d given him a look, her nose scrunched up like she’d stepped in dog poop. “Father is not feeling well today,” she’d said. Then she paused. “Assume from now on that he is not fit to teach for the day if he is late to lessons.” She slowed her speech, looking Roy dead in the face and moving her mouth with exaggerated slowness. When Roy did nothing but gape at her, she said, “Do you understand, Mr. Mustang?” Again, slow. Like she had been explaining the rules of a game to a toddler.</p><p>Roy leapt backward off the bucket. He kicked up dirt in the shed, the floor being the bare earth instead of slats of wood or concrete slab like he was used to. He dug the toe of his shoe into the soft ground, making little craters. There wasn’t much in the shed but an unused garden hoe and shovel, both rusted at the ends. They looked like they hadn’t seen action in years. The paradox of a garden hoe in the long-forgotten shed of a family with no garden left Roy with a strange emptiness in his chest, like the sight of the garden hoe was meant to stir up a memory in him that he didn’t have.</p><p>He had thought the answers to the debilitated Hawkeye house would come to him in time. Probably not from Master Hawkeye, he knew that from the moment he met him, but from his daughter, surely. Why was the Hawkeye House in such disarray? Why was everything scented with sulfur? Who was the fair-haired woman on the mantel? Why did Miss Riza cook and hunt, and Master Hawkeye labor in the basement all hours of the day and night?  She only left little plates of food at his door, his drink going warm and food going cold the longer he ignored her or, Roy assumed, forgot to eat. They did not interact, this father and daughter. It was nothing like Roy and his sisters, there was no nightly radio listening, no cuddling on the sofa or day trips to buy pastries and flowers and get sticky with sugar and drunk on laughs. She didn’t twine her fingers with her father’s, he didn’t rest his hand on the small of her back or ruffle her hair. This land, its people, they were alien, barren wastelands. Touch-starved strays.  So at odds with Roy that he felt perpetually challenged.</p><p>The weird Hawkeye girl didn’t say much. She was coupled to silence like her father. But she threw Roy seething glances when she caught him on the front lawn, transmuting aluminum cans into rings, necklaces, and bracelets, her father bent over him as he worked. Distaste for alchemy, Roy wondered, or jealousy? It didn’t matter. Roy was leading her to the shed where he, and he himself and alone, would charm Miss Riza so thoroughly that her heated stares would stop and maybe, if he was lucky, would be replaced by a smile every now and again. He had yet to make her laugh which was, in itself, a bit unnerving if only because Roy was a seasoned jokester and the sounds of giggling girls had filled his every day since he was a boy. To suddenly be deprived of it was like throwing him naked into a snowstorm. </p><p>Miss Riza returned from school as the sun was going down. Roy spotted her on the back porch, one hand full of pink slips of paper. She read the one on the pillar and cocked her head in the direction of the shed. Roy ducked when she started toward him and only stood up again when she crossed the threshold into the shed, shutting the door and the evening light out behind her. </p><p>“What are you doing?” She said. The papers were carried between her fingertips, not fisted.</p><p>“I wanted to see if you’d follow me out here even though you hate me.” Roy stuck out his bottom lip. </p><p>Miss Riza rolled her eyes. “You have too much time on your hands.” </p><p>“Truthfully,” Roy said, deflecting, “I wanted to play a game.”</p><p>Miss Riza cocked an eyebrow at him. Her mouth tilted a little. The sunlight slanted through the four blocks that made up the window, gilding Miss Riza’s frame. It struck Roy like a spear to the chest how pretty she was. Nothing like her sallow, concave-cheeked father with his pallor lips. None of him had been shared with her, and Roy was glad for that, even when she was showering him in death glares. Maybe then especially so.</p><p>“It’s a game of truths.” Roy said. “They won’t leave the sanctity of this shed.” </p><p>“I don’t owe you any truths.”</p><p>“Yet that is not the point of the game, dear Miss Riza.” </p><p>“I don’t like games.”</p><p>“Not surprising.” Roy said. Then, “Humor me. I’ve come to live with your father and he’s still a stranger.” </p><p>“You didn’t come to make friends, Mr. Mustang. As I understand it, you’ve come to learn.”</p><p>“And learn I have. And learn I shall. First rule,” Roy said, holding up a single finger. “No lying. Second rule is that you may skip one question and only one question, as indicated by saying the word <em>pass</em>. Third rule is that you can quit at any time. Fourth rule is that we take turns.”</p><p>“And we couldn’t do this inside for what reason?” She said. </p><p>“Master Hawkeye might hear.” </p><p>“Okay, but why the theatrics?”</p><p>“I grew up with only an aunt and a couple dozen sisters. Forgive me,” he said. “Now, first question: What is your favorite color?”</p><p>Riza eyed him, crossing her arms over her chest. The pink slips were still held between her fingers, crisp and whole. She was minding them. “I thought this was about getting to know my father.” She said. </p><p>“I assure you it is.” Roy said. They were standing a few feet away from one another, Roy’s back inches from the wall opposite Riza, who hadn’t moved from her place at the window since she’d shut the door. He took a step toward her and when she didn’t turn away from him, he took another, and then another, until they were close enough that one more step would put them nose to forehead (Roy’s nose, Riza’s forehead). “But you are also a stranger to me, and I must admit the prospect of knowing you is much less frightening than finding out what might be creeping around inside your father’s head.” He thought for a moment that he might have offended her - her brows pulled together; eyes turned up at him - but she smiled.</p><p>“Green,” she said. </p><p>“Which green? Emerald? Jade? Forest? Tell me it’s not lime.”</p><p>“Forest, probably.” She laughed a little, something breathy out of the corner of her mouth. Roy’s stomach lurched.</p><p>Roy shifted his weight, tucked his fist under his chin and rested his elbow in his hand. “Ask me something now.”</p><p>“Why do you want to learn alchemy from my father?”</p><p>Oh - that was loaded. Roy saw the familiar flash of jealousy in Riza’s eye as she waited for his response. What was the story there, he wondered again? Had she wanted to be her father’s pupil in Roy’s stead? “I want to learn alchemy. Someone at my aunt’s bar recommended your father, and so I came here.” It wouldn’t have been his first choice, the overgrown yard and battered mailbox and squeaky stairs, but Berthold Hawkeye was famous, a genius, a true scholar. Or perhaps he had been, before…</p><p>“Why do you want to learn alchemy?”</p><p>Roy held a finger to his lips. “It’s my turn now, Miss Riza. Why do you do all the cooking and cleaning?” And yard work and hunting and grocery shopping and mail pickup and...</p><p>Miss Riza became still as the silence that fed the shed in that moment. Everything outside of their shared space went empty, fell away, and it was just her, her arms curling in tighter on herself, the pink slips of paper folding in her palm as she balled her fists into her sides. She looked away from him and then at him again, like a startled deer, her eyes dancing in and out of liquid gold sunlight. Roy didn’t know what he was going to do, he only sensed that his tenuous hold on her was fraying. He leaned in, one arm flying out to brace against the door, and kissed Miss Riza on the lips. On the lips!</p><p>Roy pulled away as quickly as he had kissed her. He was largely unaware of what he had just done, having moved almost entirely on instinct. But Miss Riza’s face was a beautiful concoction of embarrassment and horror, her mouth forming a disbelieving <em>O</em>. Roy was still very close to her, so close he could smell the sweat in her hair from her walk home from school and the remarkably unforgettable stench of middle grade classrooms. He might have kissed her again, if only because her lips were so soft, but before he could make a decision one way or the other, Miss Riza slammed her custom-made steel toed boot into his unsuspecting shin. </p><p>Roy crumpled to the ground, holding his pounding shin in his arms. “Ouchouchouch,” he whispered into the crest of his knee. His whole leg went hot, the pain radiating through him from his foot to his groin, the focal point a throbbing, angry circle on his shin. “What the hell, Ri-”</p><p>“Don’t you ever kiss me again Mr. Mustang or I’ll aim higher next time.” Miss Riza threw the wad of pink slips down on Roy’s head before she slammed the door in his face, leaving him whining on the dirt floor of the old, unused shed.</p><p>He picked himself up several minutes later, the setting sun outside replaced by a soft, moonlight glow. His leg hurt to put pressure on it, but he refused to walk back into the house with a limp. He hissed at every step as he made his way to the back porch, the pink slips in his hand, his pride wounded. </p><p>He’d learned two valuable lessons in those few precious minutes alone with Riza Hawkeye: One, not every girl would be glad to be kissed by Roy Mustang and two, Riza Hawkeye had one hell of a kick. </p><p> </p>
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